Review: Flow

Flow unfolds as transcendent, poetic cinema: a dialogue‑free odyssey that brims with emotional resonance. From about thirty minutes in, I was utterly locked in — rising and falling with the waves alongside this unlikely crew of animals. When the rain began, I found myself as invested as one can be in a film. This is storytelling at its finest, able to say so much by doing so little.

On the surface, the plot is simple: a solitary cat survives a cataclysmic flood and ends up adrift on a small sailboat with a dog, a capybara, a lemur, and a stately secretary bird. Despite its seemingly simple premise and furry subjects, Flow becomes an intensely human story, tackling friendship, loneliness, resilience, climate, duty, and trauma. The animals remain animals, but reflect so much of what we see in and question about ourselves. Their survival journey is hauntingly beautiful.

Gints Zilbalodis, who helmed Away (2019), now stakes his second feature on this bold, brave experiment — low‑budget, Blender‑animated fable that won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature (Latvia’s first ever) and swept awards from Cannes to the Golden Globes.

The animation lacks the polish of Pixar or Ghibli, but there's profound earnestness in its simplicity. The textures have a subdued, painterly quality; camera moves stay low to reflect a cat’s perspective; and animal movements and vocal cues are authentically observed, not anthropomorphised.

Where it excels most is in atmosphere and empathy. I felt almost a part of this motley crew — drawn in by how they learned to co‑operate out of necessity, mirroring humanity’s own need to adapt. A single shot of the animals seeing themselves in a puddle-bright reflection captures the film’s poetic strength, itself a mirror of self-awareness and connection.

Flow is a lovely, encouraging tale of adaptability. It celebrates resilience, not through big gestures or blockbuster finales, but through understated humanity and delicate visual storytelling. It’s a gentle cat fable, yes, but one that roars with life. Meow.